This course examine the ways in which varying masculinities have been articulated, performed, and marketed in American popular music from the 1950s to the present day. It examines how popular music has facilitated a challenge to gender and sexual norms, or alternatively, how it has served to reinforce norms. Starting from the theoretical position rooted in feminist theory that gender is constructed, fluid, socio-historically contingent, and performative, music must be problematized as a site of gender formation, reflection, and protest. Particular focus will be given to the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity. class, and ability. It is therefore both a history of popular music and a history of gender and sexuality. This course includes musical analysis, music video analysis, scholarly articles in musicology, and theoretical readings in gender studies.
- Teacher: James Blasina